Democracy and Society

" A majority of the people
want national health care, but the lobbyists for the insurance
and medical industries have stymied it. A majority of the people
want campaign finance reform, but the tobacco companies have crushed
it. A majority of the people want a livable wage, but the Chamber
of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers undermine
efforts to raise the minimum wage to a decent level... A majority
of the people are willing to spend more money for education and
the environment, but most of our legislators balk at allocating
tax dollars for anything other than the Pentagon, prison construction,
and corporate welfare."

Mathew Rothschild, editor of the
Progressive magazine

" Many of us regard ourselves
as mildly liberal or centrist politically, voice fairly pleasant
sentiments about our poor children, contribute money to send poor
kids to summer camp, feel benevolent. We're not nazis; we're nice
people. We read sophisticated books. We go to church. We go to
synagogue. Meanwhile, we put other people's children into an economic
and environmental death zone. We make it hard for them to get
out. We strip the place bare of amenities. And we sit back and
say to ourselves, "Well, I hope that they don't kill each
other off. But if they do, it's not my fault."

Jonathan Kozol, educator and author

" The twentieth century
has been characterized by three developments of great political
importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power,
and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
corporate power against democracy. "

Alex Carey, author

"Some of the character
traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed
in many within the political arena... [They] share the traits
of psychopaths who are not sensitive to altruistic appeals, such
as sympathy for their victims or remorse or guilt over their crimes.
They possess the personality traits of lying, narcissism, selfishness,
and vanity. These are the people to whom we have entrusted our
fate. Is it any wonder that America is failing at home and world-wide?"

Jim Kouri

"We were not born critical
of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month,
or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us,
and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed
in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices,
orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television."

Howard Zinn

"During times of universal
deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary."

George Orwell

"Any president engaged
in lying and empire-building must have some of the traits of a
psychopath ... To murder innocent people in order to aggrandize
the American Empire would be extremely difficult if not impossible
for someone who feels empathy, remorse and guilt and who is incapable
of lying. It might even be suggested that having at least some
psychopathic traits is a qualification for the job."

" You can say anything
you want in a debate, and 80 million people hear it. If reporters
then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, so what ? Maybe
200 people read it, or 2000 or 20,000. "

George Bush's press secretary
to reporters following the 1980 vice-presidential debate

"Patriotism itself - love
of one's country and one's people - is a natural and reasonable
human feeling. But patriotism which measures one's country by
military superiority over all rivals regardless of consequence
is irrational... There is surely a more rational form of patriotism
that searches for excellence in social, economic and moral spheres
rather than in weapon systems."

Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert
Gould, Rollback

" The most unpardonable
sin in society is independence of thought."

Emma Goldman, American anarchist
and feminist, 1869-1940

"This focus on money and
power may do wonders in the marketplace, but it creates a tremendous
crisis in our society. People who have spent all day learning
how to sell themselves and to manipulate others are in no position
to form lasting friendships or intimate relationships... Many
Americans hunger for a different kind of society -- one based
on principles of caring, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and
communal solidarity. Their need for meaning is just as intense
as their need for economic security."

Michael Lerner, journalist

"The loud little handful
will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest
at first.... The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy
eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and
they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and
dishonorable and there is no need for war."

Then the few will shout even
louder.... Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war
speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will
be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the
speakers but dare not admit it...

Next, the statesmen will invent
cheap lies...and each man will be glad of these lies and will
study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will
bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will
thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception."

Mark Twain -- observing how wars
that are at first seen as unnecessary by the mass of the people
become converted into "just" wars

"War is not about flag-waving
and patriotism. War is about killing and death."

Christopher Hedges, NY Times corrspondent

" [The] social forces
that have been near the center of power ever since 1945 are so
well entrenched in the national security bureaucracy as to be
constants in the political setting within which foreign policy
takes shape... [as a result] the formal procedures of political
democracy (political parties, elections) give virtually no voice
to principled criticism of interventionary deplomacy in the Third
World. "

Richard Falk, professor

" Democracy is based on
the principle of one person, one vote. The market functions on
the principle of one dollar, one vote. Consequently, under conditions
of unequal economic power, a society ruled by the market is a
society ruled by those who have the most money -- the antithesis
of democracy. "

David Korten, economist and internationalist

"Why should we worry about
the death squads? They're bumping off the commies, our enemies.
I'd give them more power. Hell, I'd give them some cartridges
if I could, and everyone else would too...Why should we criticize
them? The death squad - I'm for it."

Former president of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala, September 1980

" The power of money in
elections, the increased concentration and conservative bias of
the media, the resurgent strength and aggressiveness of capital
and finance in a globalizing economy, and the weakening of labor,
provide the structural background .. for the abandonment of the
rudiments of social deocracy [in America].

" Which shall rule - wealth
or man? Which shall lead - money or intellect? Who shall fill
our public stations - educated and patriotic free men, or the
fuedal serfs of corporate wealth ? "

Edward Ryan, chief justice of
the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1873

" We must rapidly begin
the shift from a "thing"-oriented society to a "person"-oriented
society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property
rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets
of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable to being conquered.
"

"You can't believe a word the American
media says. If they say anything correct, it's just an accident."

Paul Craig Roberts

"The national interest
in a capitalist society is little more than the interest of its
upper class."

Lawrence H. Shoup and William
Minter

"The twentieth century
has been characterized by three developments of great political
importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power,
and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
corporate power against democracy."

Alex Carey

"Our leaders are cruel
because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless
can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment.
People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion
and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president
of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state,
or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor
do they want to."

William Blum

" The United States is
supposed to be in favor of human rights and democracy, so that
a show of concern by our leaders is required to demonstrate our
high moral character.This display
of concern is not necessary if there is little public interest
in or knowledge about the abusing country and its victims. Whether
the public is informed on these matters is, of course, affected
by what government, business, and the media choose to publicize,
and these conjointly tend to play down abuses by regimes that
serve U. S. business and strategic interests."

Edward S. Herman, economist and
media analyst

" We enjoy the economic
stability that the Armed Forces guarantee us. This [economic]
plan can be fulfilled dispite its lack of popular support. It
has sufficient political support ... that provided buy the Armed
Forces."

Martinez de Hoz, top financial
minister of the U.S.-supported Argentine military government,
1976, on the government's proposed economic plan

"History is fables agreed
upon."

Francois Voltaire, French philosopher
and author, 1694-1778

"An economic system can
remain viable only so long as society has mechanisms to counter
abuses of either state or market power and the erosion of the
natural, social, and moral capital that such abuses commonly exacerbate."

" What shall we think
of a government to which all the truly brave and just men [and
women] in the land are enemies, standing between it and those
whom it oppresses?..."

Henry David Thoreau

"From 1945 to 2003, the
United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments,
and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting
against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some
25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people,
and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."

William Blum

" The women of the United
States are nothing but brood sows, having sons to be put into
the army and made into fertilizer. "

Kate Richards O"Hare, 1915,
feminist

" We are a nation that
worships the frontier tradition, and our heroes are those who
champion justice through violent retaliation against injustice.
It is not simple to adopt a credo that moral force has as much
strength and virtue as the capacity to return a physical blow;
or that to refrain from hitting back requires more will and bravery
than the automatic reflexes of defense. "